Guild Wars 2

The regular reef drakes are way overtuned. Their retreat move deals about 10k damage and somehow ignores my block – and then they start stacking confusion on you, pull and deal ~3k on their auto-attack.
Veteran reef drakes are actually easier to defeat. I doubt it’s working as intended right now.
Young karkas and reef riders seem fine if a bit too durable.

not exactly sure if I understand well the OP but:

- finally an hardmode zone that actually discorauges soloing: kudos Arena Net!
- you should take into account that the difficulty of the encounters is scaled: did you notice that those Reef Drakes were lv84? When the immense zerg will leave the map, we will discover the true measure of the challenge ahead…
- I play a glass cannon Ele: no troubles at all against Young Karka and Reef Drakes. Problems start against Veteran, which looks more like Champions to me. We will discover if their difficulty comes from being under the “zerg effect” or because our gear lacks Infusion.

Zone look and feel: fine

Mob difficulty: ok, some need tuning like the drake 10k attack that a melee can’t avoid. Mostly soloable, but doing events with a zerg and somer lag often leads to death from invisible AOEs, Dot’s ticking for insane amounts etc… with little chance to react. Running around solo again was fine, not easy but fine.

Reward: absolute crap, not worth the time and effort… big let down here.

Events: very few of them, some are bugged and won’t progress.

The zone is perfect for solo or group, you just need to know how to handle the mobs, i solo anything with the exception of the champions and the veteran karkas, which indeed should be group oriented.

I am a huge critic of failed hype and when Anet screws up i let them know about it when they fail to respond or repair in a timely manner or fail to let the consumer know whats going on, and not by twitter or facebook.

I educated many many folks on how to take down every mob there once i was tired of reading the map chat on the impossible mobs, a bit of info and alot of thank you’s later is telling. Talk to some of the npc’s instead of waiting for the internet to tell youhow to kill a particular mob, every mob is explained and hints given, or read the event tooltip given to you by the npc when the event starts, just an fyi.

Great use of confusion by Anet to counter aoe, it should be used more in ORR to stop the mass kills by farmers.

The map difficulty is great, farmers cannot mass farm which is a great thing though some areas were a bit farm friendly so i reported those areas and what could be exploited and the items that were dropping like crazy. Hopefully those areas will be “hardened” even more.

Let the farmers stay in ORR. If the maps are like this or abit harder from now on it will be a good thing. Exploration, challenge, fun, not farming. Let see if Anet can keep on track.

People used to complain Orr was “impossibly difficult” too. Its fine. Also, its good that people can die sometimes. Things are boring without a bit of effort and risk.

I dipped my warrior’s toe into the zone last night and very swiftly had it bitten off! This is exponentially harder than anything that’s gone before, with regular mobs that hit like veterans (or champions) anywhere else. That being said I think it’s great to have a genuinely hard zone, it just would have been nice to get a little warning. Even with 2 condition removal skills on my warrior I was still getting my hat handed to me by karka if I aggroed more than one. I was burning cooldowns on every fight and still ending up at half health; the drakes were just downing me every time, at least they were until I got my rifle out.

Going out with company makes the whole thing much easier.

Ok, here’s my hopefully objective view on the Cove.

You can solo, but it’s really REALLY hard unless you can CC and/or stack toughness+vitality. My guardian could solo the normal (non-vet) mobs there with my mostly Berserker set, although I need to be very proactive at timing my dodge and skills which, in a sense, is fun in a challenging way. On the other hand, if you go in a party, it will be one heck of a fun ride. However, even in a party, you CAN and WILL get wiped if you attract more than three vets (which I find it really stupid… it’s a world map, not a dungeon, yet bronze vets here seem more like silver vets in dungeons. And did I mention that they have two lives?).

One bad design though: those young karka’s water gun thing, where they shoot water bullets at you in successive shots, it’s nigh impossible to simply dodge them all. The range is huge, and those bullets hit like trucks. I had to dodge twice just to avoid about 80% of the damage, and by the time they started shooting them again, my endurance bar had yet to fill back up enough for me to do the double dodge again.

If you have played up to level 80 and are not used to roll around a lot or utilize all of your skills, better start learning the how-to now. If you expect GW2 to be yet another “right click hit-hit-hit” laidback sort of game, I suggest you go find another game.

PopeUrban.2578:

Attached hatchlings function a lot like a mini-condition that’s unclearable,

Dodge roll removes face huggers.

So as usual, the ones saying it is acceptable or even easy have the reaction time of the Flash, while the rest of us can just pack up and go home. Honestly while it is nice of Anet to try and make the fights a bit more active, it seems things are overly tuned towards mobility as a defensive mechanism right now.

me and my guildys thought it was awesome to have a zone that we actualy needed to move through together

we plan on makeing weekly or bi-weekly runs through it as long as post like this down end up getting it nerfed

Just dodge to the side. Don’t run straight at them. They turn very slowly if at all when they are doing that initial blast attack. Or reflect it, I know at least half the classes have a reflect. It is a new zone, you might need different utilities from what you are used to from Orr.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reflect

Well the warrior has to trait for it and the thief’s is an elite, but only the necromancer is really out of luck. Sure, there is Death Shroud but that really needs to be charged up first.

To explain why it can be hard for those who are not 80;

SarahWitter.2317:

Southsun Cove will remain an explorable land after the weekend event concludes. During
the weekend it has dynamic level adjustment to bump players to level 80, afterwards this
will just be a set level 80 zone.

The puzzle(s) stay.

Enjoy!
~Sarah

And for the those already 80? L2P?

Erika.8256:

[…]

Yes, because only mesmers have reflect. My goodness…their damage is so high..my poor glass cannon geared character or low level alt cannot survive. Stop the QQ and actually try to analyze what you can do to improve your survivability. I for one had no issues with the mobs there.

Although 6 professions have reflect skills, mesmers are the only profession with multiple ones equippable at the same time.
Also, most reflect skills have very long recharges, while mesmers have the shortest recharge for a reflection skill.
I tried all professions, and playing with mesmers in there is ridiculously easier compared with any other profession. And my mesmers are not even close to level 80 and wer only fine-masterwork. Yet for them it was way easier than for my level 80s.
Going melee is suicidal, most condition and support builds are moot. Some of them are even immune to crowd control. The only things that work properly are hitting harder, not being hit at all, and making them hit themselves.
Going with a mesmer will allow you to go past them with illusions, kill them way easier, and overall do everything way faster than with any other profession.

You saying otherwise clearly indicates that you haven’t tried all profession like I did.

These creatures are badly designed, they just have higher stats and annoying skills. That always makes combat only boring and slow. And people avoiding the area altogether unless they are going for some drop unique to it will prove that.

They made this mistake before, in the realm of Anguish in GW2. They just hit harder and last longer, making skills like Pain Inverter a must in the area.
There isn’t anything more to it.

It is possible to solo your way across the whole island, I did it and I am not the best player nor do I have the best equipment. The trick is to be careful with you whom you fight and when you choose to start the fight.
Also, dodge has been in the game since the start, so begin using it. The dodge functionality makes a lot of fights in the game a lot easier. The young karkas is nothing when you dodge or deflect that special attack of theirs. Just keep an eye on them and you will find their rhythm

Each class also have a lot of weapon + character skills that are extremely useful, think on what weapon you are using and ask yourself if there is another one that is maybe better. Then look at the character skills and be a bit creative, my elite skill is meant to be used for knocking around opponents but it can also be used as a retreat skill if the player is creative. Get some distance and switch to ranged… lots of free damage

The new zone just isn’t worth it. I’m OK with a difficult area – the creatures in that zone are somewhat overpowered compared to Cursed Shore – but not with the remarkably unbalanced “risk vs. reward” ratio.

Creatures in Southsun Cove drop next to nothing, by comparison with Cursed Shore. There are no accomplishments associated with exploring, fighting, or gathering in this area. The crafting materials unique to the area do not provide additional benefits that cannot be obtained from other crafting materials obtainable in Cursed Shore. There’s less orichalcum and ancient wood here than in Cursed Shore, as well, making it a more expensive proposition to come here for gathering purposes.

Simply put, there’s no -incentive- to be here more than once. The rough part of that lack of incentive is that it discourages group play here, which is pretty much the only way to safely explore Southsun Cove.

It definitely is a difficult zone…. and I like that!

I remember back in the ol’ beta days when I tried out AC for the first time, and everyone was getting slaughtered. Though it was frustrating to die countless times, it was still really fun and it felt great to beat something so difficult. However now days, after reaching level 80, getting properly geared, and learning how to properly play my character, nothing has really felt as challenging (except for YOU Mad King Clocktower hehe). One day while wondering alone around Orr, I kinda just thought to myself, “I wish I would die a bit more.” And I don’t mean that in a suicidal way, hah! And that’s also not to say that I find the game boring, I still will be lovingly playing this game for quite a while, but it’s nice to be faced with difficulty at times.

So at least for me, I really enjoy how the new zone has upped the ante. It is quite easy to get ganked by those Karkas, but I embrace it! It feels like a level 80 zone, where instead of trying to go solo, you should team up and work together to succeed. And I like that

Its not an issue at the moment because to be fair its not like you wont find a few hundred other people around to help you.. Not sure how this will balance out though when it goes quieter (or is this area only for the event)?

I thought it was a decent challenge. I would never solo her by myself though (at least with my ele). When I was coming through with a friend, who is a guardian and has that reflection wall which totally destroys the young karka when they shoot, we were able to take on the large karka with only a little difficulty (about 1 or 2 revives per battle), but won every time. I just wish the loot was better or more frequent for how long it takes to kill them sometimes.

Does the large vet karka’s jump/knockdown attack have an immediate followup that also knocks down? I’m 90% sure I’m not dodging too soon…and even get the “evade” during the dodge when they land on the stomp. But I still get a knockdown (or a “block” if my aegis from virtue has come back up) after that attack. It’s possible that the timing is off beteen the jump animation and the actual KD, but I don’t think that’s the case.

Okamy.8235:

If 6 level 80 full exo can’t handle 8 young karkas and 2 drakes, they’re just bad.

The vet and champion big karkas are hard, it’s just impossible for me to solo them. I love this, finally an area where you have to play with other people if you want to take down the big foes.

My my my, first thank you for calling me bad. I’m a full exotic GS Guardian with Knight’s gear and Soldier’s Runes and I can handle, at best, 3-4 Karkas in a very tough (melee) fight. I guess I could push myself to the limit and reach 5-6 if I decided to use wall of reflection + good kiting, but in the end that utility has quite the cooldown and killing simple mobs shouldn’t be such a chore if they don’t drop anything interesting.

Ironically, I soloed a veteran with relative ease without setting up specific utilities/weapons.

Just giving feedback for Arenanet, I don’t mind challenging PvE zones but if their rewards are not worth the challenges 95% of the playerbase will simply avoid the zone.

I don’t mind the difficulty of the new area. It feels less hectic than Orr, with few mobs but larger and more difficult ones. So it’s a different kind of challenge. However with fewer mobs that take longer to kill, there is no incentive to farming the Lost Shores at all. Anet set the game up to make everything aesthetic have to be farmed in some way unless it’s availible on the cash shop. So with Lost Shores being a level 80 place that isn’t farmable, there is no reason to stick around unless you like the scenery or need a less rewarding break from Orr.

Just thought i’d throw my tuppence in. As a necro, i used DS to absorb the karka’s projectile and can usually manage to finish them off (using well of suffering, blood and bone minions for combos) with a staff as main weap. Those reef drakes, i cannot do. Once putrid mark has transferred the confusion i get another 4 or 5 stacks almost instantly. NP i thought, swap to scepter/dagger and swarm them away, except that it pulled, i was on my kitten and those 3K ticks not only finished me off, but persisted through the downed state so i couldn’t kill the mob before the ticks wiped me.

Necros have no reflects or shields of any sort (apart from well of darkness and blasting in a dark field which aren’t shields per se but have a similar effect) and we have 3 blasts. This translates to avoiding the drakes completely. I saw some skelks there which i had some fun with, but one actually ran away from me (not feared) out of LOS, became invulnerable and ran back; at which point the invulnerability faded and i could kill it. I saw the veteran skelk and thought it would stomp me, but no, it was an enjoyable (if tense) fight.

The biggest problem i had (and a guildie had the same) was that once you came down off the raised parts, you could not get back up without using a wp. At this point, the deadliness of the mobs was really putting me off further exploring so i just went back to LA.

I did manage to get some greens from the jumping puzzle chest tho, and after 50 karka have maybe 1 shell…no other drops that i can remember.

Yes, the new zone is a bit more difficult. But I half expected this. Expansions in GW1 were very similar: each had their signature enemy type, which brought in a new scale of difficulty.

In Factions, we had the Afflicted, equipped with the new Factions classes/skills. For example they casted death nova on each other, sometimes literally bombing your whole 8 man group to pieces if you took 7 henchmen.

In Nightfall you had to fight those insanely powerful Torment Creatures in Abaddon’s realm. They were patrolling in like groups of 8, and they often had multiple high damaging classes in their ranks, with high burst. Also they were around level 24-28, I think.

In EOTN, the new enemy type was the Destroyer. Around this time all the classes got some new more powerful skills, so the difficulty level didn’t go that much up.

The point is, you could always counter these enemy types with very specific skills and builds on each class, and I think this will be the same with GW2 PvE, just to “keep the metagame fresh”, as they said they do with PvP… Just don’t be afraid to try out other new skills/utilities on your class.